nobody said that the fact that theists can doubt and remain theists "makes the formal concept of theist untenable".

give him one thing, you can't say he's not consistent. He's been doing this same exact shtick for years now.

Its just incredible that he hasn't gotten tired or bored with it.

Do you see that the phrase "doubting theist" includes the word "theist", or not? Simple yes or no will do.

I said theists can doubt.

Exactly. Nothing about one's level of commitment, certitude, or open-mindedness; theism is belief in the existence of God. And belief can admit of differing levels of commitment, doubt, certitude, or open-mindedness. A doubting materialism is still a materialist, just like a doubting racecar driver is still a racecar driver and a doubting theist still a theist.

But answer the question: do you see the word "theist" in the phrase "doubting theist"?

I'm saying it is relevant, and gave an argument why; different forms of theism warrant different responses.

If you can't rebut the argument, or provide a counter, then merely saying its irrelevant doesn't mean anything.

Yes, whether a doubting theist is a theist or not is definitely freshman level logic: this is a logical truism, a tautology. Replace "theist" with any other word. If you can't understand such an elementary point of logic, I'm not sure what you're doing on a philosophy board.

Do you honestly not see the word "theist" in the phrase "doubting theist"? :roll:

Christianity is one form of theism. If we're talking about theism, its obviously perfectly fair to talk about specific examples of types of theism. This isn't rocket science.

I'm not the only saying "some kinds of theists aren't theists". This is an explicit self-contradiction, you say they are a theist while also denying they are a theist.

I mean c'mon, this is literally freshman level logic here. A doubting theist is a theist. If they aren't a theist, then they're not a "doubting theist". Are you even thinking about what you're saying at this point?

And I never said anything about "every religion in the world". We're talking about theism. And theism is an umbrella term for a wide variety of views that differ greatly in the content of their claims, and the available evidence for/against those claims.

Given this diversity, its not clear whether (and actually fairly implausible to suppose that) the most appropriate position wrt one form of theism (say, evangelical young earth Christianity) will also be the most appropriate position wrt another completely different form of theism (deism, for instance). Chances are, what is the most appropriate will differ from case to case, such that e.g. atheism is the most appropriate response to one type of theism, while agnosticism is more appropriate to others.

Its explicitly a self-contradiction. "A doubting theist is not a theist" is like saying "a doubting racecar driver is not a racecar driver". If they're a doubting theist, then it follows necessarily that they're a theist. And there is no definition of "theism" or "atheism" that says anything about varying levels of commitment or certitude. Theism is a view or belief. People can hold beliefs, to varying degrees of commitment or certitude, or with varying levels of open-mindedness to reconsidering that view, and theism/atheism is no exception. You're conflating things that are completely separate- whether one is a theist, and how committed, certain, or open-closedminded they are about their theism.

:lol:

He's just a garden-variety crackpot, all smoke and no fire.

But the definition of theist means that they are the ones who are fully committed to believing in God.

No, nothing about the definition of theist or atheist says anything about their level of commitment, certitude, or open-mindedness. These terms denote a certain belief (or disbelief): either in, or against, the existence of God. One can hold that belief with varying levels of commitment, certitude, or closed/open-mindedness, without being any more or less a theist or atheist.

If we are talking about the definitions, then doubting theists are not theists

This is a self-contradiction. A doubting theist is still a theist. "Doubting theists are not theists" is trivially/logically/definitionally false: you said it yourself, they're a doubting theist. So they're a theist... one with doubts.

And yes, we are talking about specific cases, including the example of evangelical literalist Christianity. Because, as I mentioned, some cases of theism may warrant atheism, while others do not: wrt the literalist young earth variety of Christianity, agnosticism is not warranted- atheism is. There's no reason to think either theism, atheism, agnosticism must be most rational or warranted across the board, and every reason to think it will vary from case to case, which is the more appropriate position for a given variety of theism or god-concept.

Just calling a spade a spade. If you don't like it, stop doing... spade-like stuff?

And its telling how NOT ridiculous it is, once you're being self-conscious about having gotten caught grossly mischaracterizing it. We get it, you have a negative emotional reaction to this view, but its not obviously wrong or unreasonable like the tired strawman about denying consciousness or first-person experience or whatever nonsense the dogmatists and supernaturalists like to parrot every time Dennett or materialism comes up.

Yeah I'm not interested in making shit up

From what I've seen, that's all you're interested in doing here.

Assertions which we both* know perfectly well to be true (and which have been amply demonstrated in this very thread).

*Also, anyone else who's read more than a handful of your posts.

Yeah I'm not interested in making shit up, I'm interested in what can observationally be shown to be the case... or at least theoretically, within a theoretical framework that is observationally corroborated on other grounds. And the question of what preceded the Big Bang (if anything) remains open for the reasons I mentioned.

Its not a matter of imagination, but of what is the case. And it is the case that we don't presently have a successful theory of quantum gravity. Maybe one of the present candidates like string/M-theory turns out to be that, but we will have to wait and see.

What, if anything, preceded the Big Bang remains an open question. Not only open, but necessarily so, given that we lack a theoretical framework to talk about what happens past about 10^-42 seconds after the hypothetical "t=0", when the observable universe was smaller than the Planck length (and so requiring a quantum theory of gravity to adequately describe the physics at that time). General Relativity can't tell us either way: neither geodesics nor any sort of causal relations can be traced backwards past the initial singularity (which is itself very probably an artifact of GR breaking down at these scales). Not necessarily because there wasn't anything before that, but because GR has ceased to be a good description of physical reality past this point: our theory has broken down, or been pushed past its proper domain.

So we need a new theory, in particular a theory of quantum gravity; and candidate quantum theories of gravity do extend back past this point- both string theory and loop quantum gravity/loop quantum cosmology describe, essentially, a cyclical cosmology where the Big Bang expansionary phase follows a prior contractionary phase. Cosmic inflation, which is widely accepted despite its lack of observational confirmation, also describes a time before the Big Bang.

So one way or another, it seems quite implausible that "there was nothing before the Big Bang", both in terms of the actual physics, as well as any sort of conceptual coherency to this idea.

Sufficiently aware, at least, to distort it into to something which you can call "absurd".

Of course, what it actually says is far from absurd, but against which you have no counter-arguments... which brings us back to where we started: you (apparently deliberately) mischaracterizing what materialism says, in order to cling to a thesis that evidently holds great emotional/existential importance (for you) despite the fact that its very probably false (or, at the very best, an extreme over-simplification).

Like I said, philosophical dogma, nothing more. And a particularly boring and tiresome bit of dogma at that.

You might try reading what Dennett actually says, rather than Nagel's ridiculous and tortured exegesis (i.e. strawmen)- as some posters have already urged.

But then, if you had the stomach for that, you probably would've done that already? Much safer and more comfortable to just pretend that Dennett believes something ridiculous, like that consciousness doesn't exist at all or some such nonsense.

But if you're feeling brave, you could peruse this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/#ArgForEliMat

But we both know your usual shtick here, as you've been doing it for years, so I obviously won't be holding my breath for you to engage with any of this in good faith. I'm certainly not the first one to encourage you to engage with what materialism actually says, and if it didn't work the first 100 times its probably not going to work this time either.

Agnostic is a better position to be, because it is opening the possibility for further investigation and changing their views in the future depending on the personal experience, change of thoughts through reading and discussions, personal feelings and / or logical reflections on the topic.

This isn't anything special or unique to agnosticism, there's nothing about atheism or theism that prevents one from investigating further or changing ones view if warranted by the evidence. One can be atheist or theist, and open-minded, or agnostic and closed-minded. They're just separate things.

And this idea that agnosticism is somehow more rational or warranted because it occupies the middle-ground, so to speak, reminds me of the fallacious bothsidesism we see in political discourse: i.e. the assumption that the truth or most rational position lies precisely in the middle. But sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, one side is just wrong. And its certainly possible with the case of theism. Especially certain forms of theism: evangelical literalist young-earth creationist Christianity, for instance, is just flatly wrong, conclusively disproven by the empirical evidence (evolutionary, geological, cosmological, etc). Being agnostic about the existence of such a deity would not be rational or justified, because the evidence very clearly and unequivocally supports one side over and against the other.

There might be certain god-claims or conceptions of deity that do warrant agnosticism... but by no means all, and this is by no means a given in general. You have to take them case-by-case.

The irony is that Nagel and Wayfarer are doing precisely what they accuse Dennett/the eliminativist of doing: blindly holding onto a thesis in spite of the evidence. They are so beholden to this naïve and outdated folk understanding of consciousness and the self that they more or less ignore the rather abundant and compelling reasons to doubt its accuracy or usefulness... to the extent that they can't engage with it without mischaracterizing it into an absurd strawman. Dealing with the actual evidence/arguments as stated is, apparently, too painful for them.

You'd think (or hope) that the phrase "philosophical dogma" would be something of an oxymoron, but that's about what this amounts to.

I mean, you're not exactly being coy about it, you've probably already racked up about a 50 on the Baez crank index between those two posts alone. And I've been around the interwebz long enough to know the signs. I wish you the best of luck with your "theory", though.

No, the essential part is the hot dense early state of the universe, from which it expands and cools, and no, you don't. Well, you might have a pet idea or theory, but not a serious competitor to the BBT, because there are none, and certainly not from randos on an internet message board.

Should have known this thread would be crackpot-bait, smh.

Taken from ourselves, you meant to say. Not "others".

And this isn't unique to healthcare, the same is true for all other public expenditures- it comes from taxes- the only difference here is, unlike e.g. the billions of dollars we light on fire every year for military toys that sit unused in warehouses somewhere, is that the people footing the bill would actually enjoy some benefit from it. More benefit than we're currently getting, paying more for worse outcomes to our private health insurers/providers.

Again, a no-brainer. Which is why people are having such a hard time coming up with arguments against it.

No, the fundamentals- of a universe expanding/cooling from a hot dense early state- are as close to unshakeable as you get in observational science. These elements are so firmly established on the observational evidence that any competitor would need to include them.

The only parts that are legitimately in question are the details, particularly regarding the very earliest stages where gravitation would be significant on the quantum scale.

Which is why, rather than alternative models, we mostly have extensions to this core idea, like inflation, cyclical models (CCC, LQC, etc), and so on, because the core idea is on such solid footing.

Can't believe I forgot Hume. I am embarrass. Read Hume. Read either of his Enquiries. Read his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The man was brilliant, and some of his critiques and arguments remain definitive today (his refutation of the teleological/design argument, for instance).

Yep. And the fact that universal programs outperform our own system at a lower price tag is why its such a no-brainer. Like I said, the only real argument against a universal/singlepayer system is that those CEOs won't make quite so many millions of dollars as they can in a privatized system. For the other 99.99%, its better in virtually every way that matters.

Which is, of course, why every other 1st world nation already has one, and why a majority of the American population wants one here too.

Sure, I figured I'd leave areas where I'm less familiar/well-read to others, and existentialism is definitely one of those areas. But definitely read Kierkegaard, Sartre, etc. I'll just leave it to others to recommend specific works.

Not in itself, but the fact that all our peers are doing means it should be considered.

The real argument for it, is the fact that it delivers better outcomes at a lower cost. The argument for private healthcare is... that it allows a tiny portion of the population to get excessively rich, at the expense of everyone else. So it really is a no-brainer; not every issue admits of equally compelling arguments or equally valid opinions for and against, this one is really open and shut- wanting to pay more for worse outcomes is ridiculous and irrational.

He said "pretty much" (not "every single one"), and if the best counter you can find is China, you're pretty much conceding the point. Here's a list of countries with universal/singlepayer/government-provided health care. Its.. pretty long. But sure, China's not on it- what a compelling argument.

Also probably worth noting that basically all comparable countries to the US have better health outcomes with universal/public health care than the US does with its private system. Better outcomes, with a lower price tag, and these national programs tend to be wildly popular.

So this one's not even a fair fight; universal healthcare is a no-brainer. Basically the only downside is that the CEOs of those pharmaceutical and health insurance companies won't make quite as many millions of dollars... the other 99.99% of the population is better off in basically every way. Doesn't get much more open and shut than that.

As far as philosophy goes-

Plato's Republic. Aristotle's Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics. Descartes Meditations. Kant's CPR (or better yet, a summary or exegesis since Kant is painful to read). Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Russell's Problems of Philosophy. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

a few non-philosophy ones I'd recommend to virtually anyone/everyone-

Hawking's Brief History of the Universe. Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Really any of Bart Ehrman's NT scholarship (Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, the Triumph of Christianity, etc). Am also a big fan of Sean Carroll and Lee Smolin's popular works on cosmology/astrophysics/quantum mechanics/etc.

And as a fantasy/sci-fi nerd I'd recommend fiction-lovers to check out Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos, Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, and the (ongoing) Expanse series.

Better in what sense? I assume you mean "better" in the sense of being more rational in light of the available evidence, but maybe you mean "better" in the sense that one leads to a happier or more fulfilling life?

And what is rationally warranted may well (and very probably does) differ depending on what form of theistic god-claim we're talking about: are we talking about the god of evangelical Christianity, based on a literalist reading of the Christian Bible? The remote, impersonal god of deism, or some forms of philosophical theism? Pantheism? Something in between, or something else entirely? Its not a given that the answer will be the same in all cases.

I'd suggest that atheism is the more rationally warranted (i.e. more consistent with the evidence) wrt the creator-intervener God of popular Abrahamic monotheism (Christianity in particular), but agnosticism is more rationally warranted wrt more vague and abstract god-concepts posited by philosophers and theologians (i.e. Aristotle's First Mover, Spinoza, Kant, Tillich, etc etc) for which there is little empirical evidence either for or against.

This is a pop-science description of the Big Bang model. The standard cosmological model of a hot Big Bang is nearly universally-accepted, on extremely strong empirical/observational footing... and doesn't include anything about a "beginning of the universe".

The hot Big Bang model merely posits a hot, dense early state of the universe some 13.8 billion years ago, from which it has since been expanding + cooling, leading to the present state of the universe which we observe. And the primary pieces of evidence for this are:

- the observation that space is expanding
- the observation of nearly uniformly-distributed leftover heat from this early state, the cosmic microwave background radiation
- the observation of the relative abundances of elements predicted by the big bang model

The tl;dr version is that we observe that the universe is expanding, and has this leftover heat glow. If the universe is presently expanding and cooling, then it follows that at some prior time it was denser and warmer. You rewind the cosmic clock backwards as far as you can go, and you're left with a very hot, very dense early state. This is the Big Bang; a hot dense early state of the universe, almost 14 billion years ago.

But we can only rewind the clock back so far, before our theory (general relativity) breaks down and ceases to be a good description of physical reality- at some point, quantum effects become significant, and general relativity is not a quantum theory. But we don't have a good alternative, because we do not currently have an accepted theory of quantum gravity (there are a variety of candidates, like string/M-theory, loop quantum gravity, and so on). And when we rewind the clock all the way to a hypothetical time "t=0", we get an absurdity: various physical quantities run to infinity- the "initial Big Bang singularity".

Some people, especially in popular science journalism or lay discussions, refer to this as a "beginning of the universe"... but this is dubious, because the fact that our theory predicts an apparently absurd result (i.e. infinite physical quantities, curvature pathology, etc) at precisely the point where we expect it to cease to be applicable (because quantum effects become significant, and GR is not a quantum theory) should tell us we're probably encountering an artifact of a broken theory, not something physically real. To be able to say what, if anything, preceded this state, we would need a successful quantum theory of gravity. Until then, people are free to speculate... but we just don't know either way. But there is no equivalence between the BBT and theistic creation myths- the Big Bang model, at least the part of it that is well-tested and widely-accepted, does not say anything about how the universe began, and unlike various religious myths, is corroborated by a large body of observational evidence.